Standard Deduction for 2026 and 2025

Two things happened to these numbers recently. First, OBBBA, signed July 4, 2025, made the doubled standard deduction from the 2017 tax law permanent; it had been scheduled to shrink roughly in half after 2025. Second, OBBBA bumped the 2025 base amounts up beyond the ordinary inflation adjustment. The 2026 figures come from Rev. Proc. 2025-32, the IRS's annual inflation adjustment of the new, higher base.

Timing matters when you read any standard deduction table: the 2025 amounts apply to the return you file in early 2026, and the 2026 amounts apply to the return you file in early 2027. If a page shows you one set of numbers with no year attached, close the tab.

If you are 65 or older at the end of the year, or blind, you get an additional standard deduction on top of the base amount. It is counted per person and per condition: a married couple where both spouses are over 65 gets two add-ons, and a single filer who is both over 65 and blind also gets two.

So a married couple filing jointly in 2026 where both spouses are 65 or older starts at $32,200 plus two $1,650 add-ons, for a $35,500 standard deduction. A single 66-year-old gets $16,100 plus $2,050, or $18,150. The add-on is baked into the standard deduction itself, which means one important thing: itemize, and it is gone. Keep that in mind for the worked example below.

OBBBA also created a brand-new deduction for taxpayers 65 and older: $6,000 per qualifying person, $12,000 for a couple where both spouses qualify, for tax years 2025 through 2028. This is NOT the age-65 additional standard deduction from the last section, and it is not a replacement for it. It is a separate deduction that stacks on top, and unlike the add-on, you keep it even if you itemize.

The catch is an income phase-out. The bonus shrinks by 6 cents for every dollar of modified adjusted gross income above $75,000 (single) or $150,000 (married filing jointly), disappearing entirely at roughly $175,000 and $250,000. You also need a valid Social Security number to claim it, and married taxpayers generally must file jointly.

This deduction is also the fine print behind the "no tax on Social Security" headlines: it does not actually change how Social Security benefits are taxed, it just gives many benefit recipients a deduction big enough to zero out the tax on them. Whether your benefits are taxable in the first place is its own calculation, which we walk through in is Social Security taxable.

Someone who can be claimed as a dependent on another person's return does not get the full standard deduction automatically. For both 2025 and 2026, a dependent's standard deduction is the greater of $1,350 or their earned income plus $450, capped at the regular standard deduction for their filing status.

In practice: a 16-year-old with a $6,000 summer-job W-2 gets a standard deduction of $6,450 ($6,000 earned income plus $450), which shelters every dollar of those wages from federal income tax. A dependent with only investment income is stuck at the $1,350 floor, which is one reason unearned income inside a child's name gets taxed quickly.

The decision is one comparison: add up what you could claim on Schedule A, and if it beats your standard deduction, itemize. The ingredients that usually decide it are state and local taxes, mortgage interest, and charitable giving, and OBBBA changed the rules on all three.

• State and local taxes (SALT): the cap jumped from $10,000 to $40,000 for 2025 and $40,400 for 2026. But there is a phase-down: above $500,000 of MAGI in 2025 ($505,000 in 2026), the cap shrinks by 30 cents per dollar of income over the line, until it lands back at $10,000. High earners in high-tax states can lose the entire expansion. The cap reverts to $10,000 in 2030 under current law.
• Mortgage interest: still deductible on up to $750,000 of acquisition debt, a limit OBBBA made permanent. Starting in 2026, mortgage insurance premiums count as deductible interest again.
• Charitable giving (itemizers): starting in 2026, only the portion of your gifts above 0.5% of AGI is deductible. Give $8,000 on $200,000 of AGI and the first $1,000 evaporates. Top-bracket donors also see the benefit capped at 35 cents per dollar.
• Charitable giving (non-itemizers): the good news. Starting in 2026, you can take the standard deduction AND deduct up to $1,000 of cash gifts ($2,000 married filing jointly). Gifts to donor-advised funds and certain private foundations do not qualify.

The full menu of what can go on Schedule A, plus the above-the-line deductions everyone gets, lives in our tax deductions list.

Per IRS rules, you cannot use the standard deduction if any of these apply:

• You file married filing separately and your spouse itemizes. If one spouse itemizes on a separate return, the other spouse's standard deduction is zero. Not reduced. Zero.
• You were a nonresident alien or dual-status alien during the year, with a narrow exception for someone married to a US citizen or resident who elects to be treated as a US resident for the full year.
• You file a short-year return because of a change in your annual accounting period, which is rare for individuals.

Here is what most standard deduction guides will not say: if you are a W-2 household without a big mortgage in a high-tax state, the standard deduction wins, it is not close, and no amount of receipt hoarding changes that. That is fine. The standard deduction is not a consolation prize; it is a large deduction you get for free.

It just means the real tax planning happens elsewhere: above-the-line moves like 401(k) and HSA contributions that cut your income before the standard-vs-itemize question is even asked, timing income across years, and managing investment gains so they land in the cheapest bracket. Start with our guide on how to reduce taxable income for the full stack, and if investments are your biggest number, the capital gains tax strategy guide covers the timing side.

The people who genuinely need to run the itemizing math each year: homeowners in high-tax states now that the SALT cap is $40,000+, seniors juggling the add-on and the bonus phase-out, chronically generous donors, and anyone within a few thousand dollars of the line where bunching turns a coin flip into a strategy.